abstract: This research investigates the experiences of Chinese heritage language learners (CHLLs) in a federally funded program of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language in the United States. Most pertinent studies on Chinese heritage language education focus on stakeholders such as teachers and parents. Instead, this study explores the agency of heritage language learners in their efforts toward heritage language maintenance. Adopting a three-pronged conceptual framework of language planning and policy as a sociocultural process, language ideology, and language identity, this study applies an ethnographically-informed qualitative approach to understanding how CHLLs develop and exercise implicit language policies—taken-for-granted norms about language that guide their language choices and practices—their language ideologies that undergird these policies and the relationship of these informal policies to these learners’ language identities. This study suggests CHLLs participate in Chinese learning activities to reconnect to their family and culture. Their language maintenance efforts, however, do not necessarily change their language use dramatically. In CHLLs’ everyday social interactions, their language choices depend on the interlocutors, locations and topics of the conversation and are impacted by the dominant language ideologies toward Chinese and English. CHLLs’ Chinese language maintenance practices strengthen learners’ relationship with both the language and culture. But Chinese language can be absent from learners’ pursuit of their cultural heritage. Furthermore, the multilayered identities of CHLLs are constructed and negotiated in the heteroglossic and multicultural environments. This is an endeavor in connecting the initiatives of increasing foreign language capacity at the national level with the efforts of maintaining heritage language at the individual level. This study can contribute to a holistic picture for teachers and parents to understand CHLLs’ language learning experience. It also offers strategies that can benefit heritage language education. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2016

<p> Stigma has profound consequences on individuals with mental illness, specifically schizophrenia. Individuals who suffer from internalized stigma further struggle with self-esteem, quality of life, and their recovery from mental illness. To avoid rejection and being the target of discrimination, these individuals often practice coping strategies such as secrecy and withdrawal. However, these coping strategies can eventually lead to poor self-image, restricted opportunities in life, and other negative outcomes. Cultural beliefs relating to the concept of <i>face</i> and Confucianism further exacerbate the effects of stigma among Chinese American individuals who suffer from mental illnesses. </p><p> This study examined the experiences of stigma and coping strategies used by Chinese Americans with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The associations between internalized stigma, experienced stigma, loss of face, and coping strategies were also analyzed. Unlike previous studies, this study found that internalized and experienced stigma were not associated with coping strategies used by the Chinese American participants; instead, the cultural construct of loss of face was associated with secrecy as a coping strategy. This study calls for further research on the effects of this cultural construct on one&rsquo;s recovery.</p><p>

<p> Although Filipino and Filipino American nurses represent an impressive share of the nursing workforce, they are not well represented in advanced practice, faculty, and executive leadership positions. Obtaining a graduate degree in nursing has the potential to open a wider range of opportunities to meet the healthcare demands of a population that is growing older, and increasingly becoming more diverse. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors affecting graduate degree pursuit for BSN-prepared Filipino and Filipino American nurses working in the United States. This study provides an in-depth examination into intergenerational perspectives from 33 Filipino and Filipino American nurses from 14 states. Ricoeur&rsquo;s hermeneutical phenomenology was utilized as an interpretive approach and the theoretical underpinnings of career construction theory served as a framework. This study revealed that the determination to provide a better life for their family and a commitment to advancing the profession were incentives to pursuing a graduate degree. In addition, having a reliable network of colleagues and peer mentors was essential to persisting in their programs. Across all generations, finances were a major barrier to educational attainment, specifically for first-generation participants who prioritized sending money back to their family in the Philippines. Other factors were related to English as a second language, communication styles, experiencing discrimination, lack of knowledge of available graduate programs, approaching the age of retirement, friction between generations, and perceived discrimination. Exposure to advanced practice registered nurses in the workforce was a disincentive for some participants and was inspiring to others. These factors were not independent of each other and their impact fluctuated over time. The decision to pursue an advanced nursing degree depended upon the individual&rsquo;s determination that the return on investment of a graduate degree outweighed the sum of all their responsibilities and obligations. Findings from this research can help the Filipino community and professional nursing organizations, higher education faculty and staff, and healthcare system leaders in developing strategic plans to help Filipino and Filipino American nurses overcome barriers and to facilitate robust pathways for those who intend to advance their educational goals and professional nursing careers.</p><p>

<p> Shinto is a native Japanese religion with a history that goes back thousands of years. Because of its close ties to Japanese culture, and Shinto&rsquo;s strong emphasis on place in its practice, it does not seem to be the kind of religion that would migrate to other areas of the world and convert new practitioners. However, not only are there examples of Shinto being practiced outside of Japan, the people doing the practice are not always of Japanese heritage. </p><p> The Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America is one of the only fully functional Shinto shrines in the United States and is run by the first non-Japanese Shinto priest. This thesis looks at the community of practice that surrounds this American shrine and examines how membership is negotiated through action. There are three main practices that form the larger community: language use, rituals, and Aikido. Through participation in these activities members engage with an American Shinto community of practice.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation outlines the literature and methods used to create the Women&rsquo;s RAISE Circle, a culturally-specific intervention for Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) women in a university or college setting. The term <i>Asian American/Pacific Islander women</i> is used to indicate inclusivity of women from all of the AAPI ethnic communities. The acronym RAISE represents the rationale and purpose of the circle: &ldquo;<i> R</i>eclaiming our <i>A</i>sian American/Pacific Islander <i> I</i>dentity for <i>S</i>ocial justice and <i>E</i>mpowerment.&rdquo; Thus, the RAISE Circle provides a space for AAPI women to voice their concerns related to experiences of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. Included activities also seek to promote an exploration of personal and interpersonal experiences with intersecting identities and engagement in difficult conversations about oppression, power, and privilege. As an empowerment group, the RAISE Circle aims to help participants feel empowered to bring their concerns to the broader community and continue working for social justice for AAPI people. This dissertation includes the RAISE Circle Facilitator&rsquo;s Handbook and Primer, indications for use, limitations, and implications for the future. </p><p>

My dissertation is an ethnographic study of Asian-American users on the social network site, Xanga. Based on my analysis of online texts, responses to texts, and participants’ discussions of their writing motivations, my research strongly suggests that examining digital writing through participants’ complex and overlapping constructions of their community and public(s) can help the field reconsider digital writing as a site of Asian-American rhetoric and as a process of constructing and transforming racial identities and relations. In particular, I examine how community and public, as interconnected and shifting writing imaginaries on Xanga, afford Asian-American users on this site the opportunity to write, explore, and circulate their racial and ethnic identities for multiple purposes and various audiences. Race and ethnicity, as many scholars argue, are shifting and unstable concepts and experiences. Therefore, writing about race and ethnicity may be done best in environments that can accommodate complex and multiple acts of racial and ethnic formations. While my research demonstrates how participants “want to be heard” on their own terms, whom they imagine (or want to imagine) as listening/reading significantly informs their writing. That is, participants’ conceptions of their writing goals and their audiences are multiple and simultaneous—these racial and ethnic writing acts are often inflected by intersecting issues of gender, sexuality, class, culture, and intergenerational tensions—and, hence, traditional writing genres that limit such goals, audiences, and complexity do not always reflect how writers conceive of their own racial and ethnic experiences and their writing in the world. This study, then, examines Xanga as a flexible writing ecology that affords Asian-American users opportunities to compose their continuously transforming and complex racial and ethnic identities across multiple niches of representational sites and, specifically, in public and community spaces.

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